Album producer chosen?

“Well I think it’s now confirmed, it’s Bob Ezrin who will produce the new Deep Purple album”... According to Steve Morse, they have asked Bob Ezrin to produce the new studio album. This as you might imagine is Quite A Big Deal and indicates the level of seriousness with which they seem to be approaching the project. Ezrin has worked with some of the biggest names around, Pink Floyd, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, etc. There are also links with Morse going back to the last Kansas album (which Ezrin co-produced and also helped write) and this may have influenced their decision.
Morse was giving the news to French magazine Rock Hard. Thanks to Mathieu Pinard for the story.
And anyone else spot the Kansas sleeve imitating the old Bent Out Of Shape one as I did when checking this story!?

Share this:

Like this:

Related

This entry was posted on April 13, 2012 at 7:57 am and is filed under Albums, Updates and news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

16 Responses to “Album producer chosen?”

It is a saddening sign that now we look for a producer to save Deep Purple’s face. COMPOSITION is not one of the biggest talent of this outfit. See Rogers latest outing on his own site on how difficult it is for him to come up with something worthwhile.
Not exactly encouraging.
Don Airey recently said in a interview that DOWN TO EARTH is his favourite album he’s been on. That’s telling, not?!

You would kind of expect Don to fly the fly for his current employers true, but he didn’t chose his solo album either, so maybe it’s just more a period he really enjoyed in his musical career. And now I’ve got the DTE title track riff in my head all day!

Which DTE title track would that be? ;-) To be fair to Don, DTE was his favourite of eleven albums in the RC article. Rapture was also in there so current employers were not overlooked. I found it stranger that ALITS wasn’t there, though K2 and All Out were. Favourites – it’s a personal thing.

One positive is Ezrin’s absolute willingness to tell a band that what they’re writing or playing isn’t working. With the strong egos in this band, expect some major league headbutting on this album. I’m honestly quite intrigued to see how Gillan and Ezrin work together and “get along”.

Perhaps the BBC will be able to do a fly on the wall documentary about the making of?! But you’re right, the band need somebody they respect to push them. I think we’re all mostly agreed they can still cut the mustard, let’s just make sure it’s strong and English!

Bob Ezrin is known as much for over-production, piling on sound effects and children’s choirs and horning in on as many co-writes as he can get as he is for meat-and-potatoes hard rock. Having him as producer could be beneficial or seriously detrimental to the project.
If they’d signed up someone with a consistent track record of getting a clear, powerful sound – like Max Norman, Peter Collins, or Ted Templeman (is he still working?) – that would be exciting!
Wondering what people have got against Michael Bradford’s production? In my view “Bananas” is easily the best-sounding post-Blackmore record. Full, energetic, pounding yet crystal-clear, and he even got Gillan to scream on record again.
Hopefully we can all agree that however the Ezrin thing pans out, at least it will be nice to have one more Purple record! (If it actually gets made…)

I would agree Bananas is a corker sound-wise, and even has a couple of stand-out tracks on it. I thought they’d found their George Martin with Bradford until I heard Rapture, possibly one of the worst sounding DP albums ever. So no idea what went wrong there. I personally think Abandon is the best post RB sounding album, really grungy, and Roger was helping twiddle the dials on that. You’ve got me worried about children’s choirs now though!

At this stage in the game, Purple have been there and done that, meaning it’s time for something different. This might just be the ticket. Taking the Production to this level is going to be a game changer and something long overdue. I am truly looking forward to this offering and the collaboration between Purple and Ezrin. Their musical talent and his overall gift for complete oversight should bring about an incredible record. It’s a ballsy move from these staples of Rock. Kudos to this decision.

Hope this works out. Sorry but could not stand the sound
of Rapture or Bananas with Bradford. The new Alice Cooper album with Ezrin is great. Really like all the KISS and Alice Cooper stuff with Ezrin. At least.. it would be very interesting.

This could be real good considering Ezrin’s hands-on approach. He´s a prolific producer/arranger and has several great co-writes under his belt. Hope all the practical parts of this works out and the chemistry is there. I guess it´s a good sign that Morse already have the experience of working with him.